WEBVTT HAS THIS NEW STORY.rtANDREW: WHILE MOST OF US WERETAKEN IN BY THE SPECTACLE,RESEARCHERS ACROSS THE COUNTRYWERE FOCUSED ON THE SCIENCE.rt>>rt IF THE SUN WERE TO DISAPPEARALL OF SUDDEN, WHAT WOULD HAPPENTO THE ENVIRONMENT?WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO THEATMOSPHERE?ANDREW: AJAY SHANKER WAS PART OFTHE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA TEAMTHAT SPEND THErt DAY NEARBEATRICE.WHAT MADE THEIR RESEARCH UNIQUEWAS THEY WERE USING DRONES.>> DATA LIKE THIS IS USUALLYCOLLECTED USING WEATHERBALLOONS, BUT USING DRONES HELPSYOU COLLECT HIGHER RESOLUTIONrtDATA WHENEVER YOU WANT, AND YOUCAN COLLECT VERTICAL PROFILES ATANY DENSITY YOU LIKE.ANDREW: SHANKAR IS A PHDCANDIDATE AT N.U.'S NIMBUS LAB.IT'S THE SAME LAB THAT IS DOINGRESEARCH ON FIRE STARTING UAV'S.rtTHESE SPECIALLY-DESIGNED WEATHERDRONES WERE EQUIPPED WITHSENSORS THAT RECORDED PRESSURE,TEMPERATURE, HUMIDITY, ANDLIGHT.INITIAL FINDINGS INDrtICATE ANINE-DEGREE DROP IN TEMPERATURE.SURFACE WINDS CALMED ANDHUMIDITY ROSE.>> YOU CAN STUDY CHANGES INATMOSPHERE AT A SCALE THAT WASPREVIOUSLY NOT POSSIBLE.ANDREW:rt THAT RESEARCH COULD BEIMPORTANT TO PREDICTING ANDMAPPING THE EFFECTS OF DISASTERSFROM VERY SEVERE WEATHER OR ANUCLEAR ATTACK.>>rt ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA THAT ISPART OF AN ECLIPSE IS NOTSTUDIED WELL.THE LAST TIME IT WAS STUDIED WASTHE 1980'S OR SOMETHING LIKETHAT.

While most of us were looking up during the solar eclipse, some University of Nebraska researchers were looking down from their drones.

They were conducting studies on what would happen to the atmosphere if a natural or man-made disaster suddenly shut off the sun's radiation on Earth.

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The research team, which was led by Husker scientists Adam Houston and Carrick Detweiler, spent Aug. 21 northwest of Beatrice.

The total solar eclipse was a rare opportunity for the research.

"Theoretically, we had an idea of what should happen, but it's never actually been measured," Houston said.

"This can show if and how the atmosphere changes very rapidly, and help our understanding of how the atmosphere responds when it is perturbed in a significant way."

Houston, an associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, said having data from such an extreme occurrence could allow for better predictions of the possible effects of disasters from very severe weather to a nuclear attack.

"It's an end member, which is really important to the overall insight into the behavior of the atmosphere," Houston said.

"Science can go from there in mapping out the spectrum of possibilities based on length of time and severity of obscuration of the sun."

It is equipped with sensors that record pressure, temperature humidity and light.

"Data like this is usually collected using weather balloons, but using drones helps you collect higher resolution data whenever you want and you can collect vertical profiles at any density you like," Shankar said.

He said the drones gave the team an opportunity to study changes in the atmosphere on a scale that was previously not possible

The team included researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Oklahoma State University and other graduate and undergraduate students from the University of Nebraska-based Nebraska Intelligent MoBile Unmanned Systems, or NIMBUS, Lab.

Data collected from weather drones, and weather balloons and surface observations were recorded by the Nebraska-engineered Integrated Mesonet and Tracker, a vehicle with mobile meteorological sensors.

The team will continue analyzing the collected data collected over the next few months, but early examinations did show a 9-degree drop in temperature and surface winds calmed.

Viewers of the eclipse likely noticed these changes, too, in the form of humidity, Houston said.

As the eclipse reached totality, the relative humidity rose because of the drop in temperature and the calming of surface winds.

"It felt muggy very suddenly," Houston said.

The team stayed on-site from 10 a.m. until after sunset, gathering data through each phase of the eclipse and at nightfall and recorded 223 minutes of data during 13 flights.

The eclipse was also another opportunity to use the drones the NIMBUS Lab designed through CLOUD-MAP, a project to design and manufacture weather drones to revolutionize weather data collection.